Why is desk booking so hard to get right??

I’ll never forget the first time working for a company with non-assigned seating - it was 2009, I was 25 and on my first day I heard “Well, sit somewhere there” followed by a vague gesture pointing to an area of desks. After my early corporate career at Coca-Cola and Danone, this was quite a shock.?

But I came to accept it and over time maybe even enjoy it. And it made total sense - the system allowed the company to create all the spaces that are typically nowhere to be found or always busy: focus rooms, phone booths, meeting rooms.?

Why would you read yet another article on desk booking? (other than: at least it’s short)

It fascinated me enough to actually apply to workplace strategy consultancy - DEGW (these guys basically invented non-assigned seating, hybrid work and all those other concepts - and they did it in the 1980s..). Fast forward a decade - I’ve worked on moving over 100 000 people into activity based working, long before the pandemic, delivering projects for Astra Zeneca, Cisco, Credit Agricole, Disney, GSK, JP Morgan, Roche, Swiss Re and many others.?

We did change management and lots of it. And have learnt a lot.?

Everyone wants it… differently

Even so, when we decided to add desk booking functionality to spaceOS I felt like every company demanded something completely different:

• Floorplan - we need to book from an interactive floorplan!
• We want only Admins/Managers/XYZ to book for others
• Can I filter by desk type?
• Can I find who’s coming to the office?
• Can others see me? - Eww!
• Can you do shifts??
• Can we do neighborhoods??

It seemed everyone was faced with this new challenge that C-19-carrying-bats brought us and… everyone decided to fix it in their own special way.?

We were lucky to pick up some truly amazing clients who worked with us to find the right answers (Hitachi, Siemens Energy, Allianz Real Estate, United Utilities, EMCOR) and without them the solution would probably be trash worthy.?

So here’s what we’ve learnt. And are still learning (and still improving).?

Hybrid Work cheat sheet?

1. Make it possible to see who’s coming to the office

The worst that can happen is: you come and there’s no place for you. Second worst? You come, nobody is there, you could have stayed home.?

That’s why enabling people to see who’s coming, particularly from their own team is very powerful. It’s good to make the visibility optional - some of us are very sensitive to privacy.

2. Create neighborhoods

Ability to sit next to the person you need to work with on a given day is a redeeming quality of hybrid work even for those of us who hate not having a desk. The other benefit: whether you get a window seat depends on you, not on HR!?

You don’t want to create an office wide “hot seats!” game - Finance will want to typically sit with Finance, Legal with Legal etc. You can make certain desks bookable only by certain departments and you can make some in those desiccated areas (say 20% of desks) bookable by anyone - to enable managing peak attendance of certain teams.?

3. Filtering & search will save you!

If you can search for a height adjustable desk or one with a double screen or one next to a window, everyone will be happier. If you go a step further and create quiet areas, and help people find them - even the most conservative folks may actually show up in the office.

4. Floorplans (maybe not?)

There’s something very appealing and futuristic about interactive floorplans. You choose where you want to seat, you rotate the view - wow! Unfortunately we’ve learnt that it’s mainly architects, facility and real estate professionals who enjoy reading plans. For everyone else desk numbering, creating clear sections, color-coding etc. provides a much better experience.?

Not to mention that a lot of desk booking happens on mobile and that’s where floorplans just don’t work great. Finally in my whole workplace strategy career I’ve never seen an up to date floorplan - it’s fine when it’s used for managing space, much worse if it causes confusion for employees. And keeping floorplans up to date is a lot of work!

5. Learn & improve

Introducing hybrid work is an experiment for many organizations and they should treat it as such. Meaning? Gather data: what’s the utilization of the space? How satisfied are the employees? Once you see that HR is completely overbooked and Sales has desks galore - reassign the desks! Ideally you have a system that makes all of the above very easy.?

And maybe sensors are not the best idea - bookings, booking reminders and check-in in our experience prove better at eliminating “ghost bookings” ahead of time and improving the general availability of desks (and rooms). Plus sensors tend to be expensive and… nothing says “I don’t trust you” to an employee more than a sensor.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but get these wrong and it’ll not be a pleasant transformation.?

A proper transition requires changing the proportions of desks to meeting and collaborative spaces, providing quiet areas/rooms and really rethinking the function of the office.?

That though… will take a little longer.